Sports World: Olympic Shooting Trials In Apil, May; Women's Asia Cup To Be Held In Dambulla From July 19 - As It Happened

Here is what transpired on Tuesday, 26 March 2024. The Indian football team were stunned 1-2 by Afghanistan in the second round match of FIFA World Cup 2026 Qualifiers at Guwahati, Assam. Their last game ended in a draw and a result is expected on Tuesday. In the evening, the IPL 2024 encounter saw CSK beat GT by 63 runs in match 7 in Chennai. Here's what transpired in the world of sports for, 26 March 2024. (Cricket News | Football News)

We have a major upset in Miami Open. The world's top-ranked women's singles tennis player Iga Swiatek has been knocked out by Ekaterina Alexandrova 4-6, 2-6 in the round of 16.

The 2024 season of Major League Baseball is nearly upon us. Spring training games are currently underway and the MLB Opening Day will take place on Thursday (March 28).

The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres officially commenced the 2024 MLB season with a two-game set in Seoul, South Korea, on March 20 and March 21. Los Angeles won the first game 5-2, while San Diego came out on top 15-11 in game two.

Spanish tennis sensation Carlos Alcaraz has defeated Gael Monfils 6-4, 6-2 to progress to the round of 16 in Miami Open. Alcaraz will face Lorenzo Musetti in the pre-quarter-finals.

Gustaf Nilsson scored in the 62nd minute to power Sweden's 1-0 win over Albania 1-0 in their international friendly, earlier today. Meanwhile, Serbia edged out Cyprus 1-0 in another friendly.

Argentine police are probing an anonymous death threat to football star Angel di Maria, delivered in his hometown of Rosario, Associated Press reports.

The FIFA World Cup-winner stays in the Funes Hills Miraflores condominium, where staffers said they found a package containing a death threat to Di Maria's family if he returned to play for one of the city clubs.

Rosario has been rocked by waves of violence between rival drug dealing groups. The city homicide rate is 22 per 100,000 residents, far above Argentina's average of 4.2 per 100,000.

Brazilian striker Gabriel Barbosa has been suspended for two years following a doping fraud investigation, Associated Press reports. The country's anti-doping sports court of justice voted 5-4 to punish Barbosa to April 2025.

He brought attention to himself by his erratic behavior during a surprise test on April 8, 2023, one day before Flamengo played the Rio de Janeiro state championship. Anti-doping officers who came to test players at the club training ground were largely ignored by Barbosa, who took his test hours after his teammates.

De' Andre Hunter scored 24 points, including a game-sealing 3-pointer with 10.1 seconds left, and the Atlanta Hawks roared back from a 30-point deficit to hand the NBA-leading Boston Celtics a shocking 120-118 loss.

The Hawks trailed 68-38 with under 4 1/2 minutes left in the second quarter before Hunter, Bogdan Bogdanovic and Dejounte Murray keyed an improbable second-half rally. Bogdanovic scored 10 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter, while Murray recorded 11 of his 19 points after half-time and ended the night with 15 assists.

Indian table tennis beacon Sathiyan Gnanasekaran has leapfrogged 43 places to be 60th, while Sreeja Akula has risen to a career-high 40th place in the ITTF World Rankings, following their WTT Feeder Series title wins last week.

Sathiyan, who has a career-best ranking of 24, had dropped out of the top 100 recently. The title in Beirut earned him 125 points.

Veteran Sharath Kamal, who has dropped a place to be 35, continues to be the top-ranked Indian.

Kim Clijsters announced she would come out of retirement on this day in 2009. The former world number one, then aged 25, said she would make her grand slam comeback at the US Open.

Clijsters had retired in May 2007 and became a mother the following year.

The highly-awaited five-match Test series between India and Australia will commence at Perth's Optus Stadium on November 22, the venue replacing Adelaide Oval as Cricket Australia's preferred choice for the season opener.

The series will then move to Adelaide for the day-night pink-ball Test from December 6-10, followed by Brisbane (Dec 14-18) and Melbourne for the traditional Boxing Day Test (Dec 26-30). The rubber will conclude with the New Year's Test in Sydney from January 3-7.

Chen Xuyuan, the former Chinese Football Association president, has received a life sentence for helping fix matches and using his various positions to commit financial crimes, Associated Press reports.

Chinese courts have handed down sentences of between eight years and life in prison to officials in the Communist Party-controlled sports programs, accusing them of taking bribes and committing other financial crimes.

Veteran Indian hockey goalkeepers PR Sreejesh and Savita Punia are in contention for the country's 'Player of the Year' honours in the men's and women's categories, respectively. Hockey India has unveiled nominees for its annual awards, which will be presented in Delhi on March 31.

India men's team captain and defender Harmanpreet Singh has also been shortlisted in two categories. He will be in contention for the player of the year as well as the defender of the year award.

The Union sports ministry has approved protesting wrestler Bajrang Punia's request for financial assistance, and also extended the tenure of his strength and conditioning coach Kazi Kiron Mustafa Hasan till end of May, even though the wrestler is out of contention for Paris Olympic Games 2024.

Punia had failed to finish in the top four of the 65kg category at the recent trials to pick the squads for the Asian Championships and the Asian Olympic Qualifiers next month. He is part of a long-standing protest against the Wrestling Federation of India for alleged sexual harassment of women grapplers by its former president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.

All-rounder Shakib Al Hasan was passed fit after an eye problem to be picked in the Bangladesh squad for the second and final Test against Sri Lanka starting on Saturday in Chattogram. Bangladesh lost the opening Test by 328 runs in four days. Shakib has been out of the national team since November at the Cricket World Cup in India. The captain hit 82 and took two wickets to beat Sri Lanka. But, he broke his left index finger, and a vision problem was revealed. (AP)

Check India's starting XI for their match against Afghanistan -

Afghanistan Starting XI:

Ovays; Mahboob, Amiri, Sharif, Askar, Mosawer Ahadi, Rahmat Akbari, Jabar Sharza, Taufee Skandari, Zelfagar, Omid.

Both teams are still goalless after the first 20 minutes

India lead Afghanistan 1-0 at the halfway mark via a Sunil Chhetri penalty strike in this return leg of FIFA World Cup 2026 Qualifiers

Rahmat Akbari gets past Indian defence as Afghanistan come right back into the game.

India concede another goal this time via a penalty kick and the game has turned on its head with just a few minutes left.

Despite Chhetri's goal in his 150th international appearance, India were handed a defeat at the hands of the Afghans as the visiting team scored twice in the second half to snatch victory from the hands of the hosts.

The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) on Tuesday released a list of the pistol and rifle shooters who will compete in the Olympic shooting trials in New Delhi and Bhopal. The Olympic quota winners will compete against country's top-ranked shooters in the trials.

There will be a series of four trials but the scores of top-three will be considered. The first two phases will be held at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Ranges in New Delhi from April 18-27.

The third and fourth phase of the trials will be held at the MP Shooting Academy from May 10-19. (PTI)

Defending champions India have been clubbed with arch-rivals Pakistan, UAE and Nepal in group A of the women's Asia Cup T20 Championships which is scheduled to get underway in Dambulla, Sri Lanka on July 19.

The nine-day affair, will feature eight teams -- one extra than the last edition. Unlike last time, the eight teams will be split into two groups with Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia placed in Group B. (PTI)

And with that, we call it a night on our sports coverage. Hope you have liked this one.